The dual-process perspective and the benefits of retrieval practice in younger and older adults.

The testing effect is often considered a recollection-related phenomenon. However, recent work has observed a benefit of testing to both recollection and familiarity on immediate and delayed final tests. Further, although aging populations show marked declines in recollection, older and younger adults often benefit similarly from testing. This finding suggests that the testing effect in older adults may function via relatively preserved familiarity and lends further support to the hypothesis that the testing effect does not function solely via recollection-related processes. The current study builds on this work to better understand the mechanisms from the dual-process perspective that underlie the testing effect in both younger and older adults. To this end, younger (18-22 year old) and older (65-82 year old) adults studied words, took cued-recall tests on half of the words, and took a final Remember-Know recognition test on all words immediately or after a 1-day delay. At both delays, older and younger adults exhibited a testing effect in both recollection and familiarity, although the magnitude of the testing effect in recollection was reduced for older relative to younger adults. Implications for theories of the testing effect and its application in older adult populations are explored.

The stability of visual perspective and vividness during mental time travel.

When remembering or imagining, people can experience an event from their own eyes, or as an outside observer, with differing levels of vividness. The perspective from, and vividness with, which a person remembers or imagines has been related to numerous individual difference characteristics. These findings require that phenomenology during mental time travel be trait-like-that people consistently experience similar perspectives and levels of vividness. This assumption remains untested. Across two studies (combined N = 295), we examined the stability of visual perspective and vividness across multiple trials and timepoints. Perspective and vividness showed weak within-session stability when reported across just a few trials but showed strong within-session stability when sufficient trials were collected. Importantly, both visual perspective and vividness demonstrated good-to-excellent across-session stability across different delay intervals (two days to six weeks). Overall, our results suggest that people dependably experience similar visual phenomenology across occurrences of mental time travel.

A role for familiarity in supporting the testing effect over time.

Endel Tulving (1985) drew a distinction between Remembering and Knowing, spurring a great deal of research on the memorial experiences of recollection and familiarity and their contribution to various phenomena in memory. More recently, studies have used this distinction to situate our understanding of the processes that contribute to the testing effect-or, the benefit of retrieval practice to later memory (see also Tulving, 1967). Using retention intervals of approximately 15 min or less between initial and final testing, several studies have found that initial testing magnifies estimates of recollection but not familiarity, regardless of whether a testing effect is revealed in overall recognition performance (Chan and McDermott, 2007). However, the efficacy of prior testing in enhancing memory has been shown to change over time, as have estimates of recollection and familiarity. Thus, the mechanisms that underlie the quintessential testing effect-one that occurs in overall recognition or recall over longer delays-are still uncertain. To investigate this issue, in two experiments, subjects studied word lists, took 3-letter stem cued-recall tests on half of the studied words, and completed a final recognition test in which estimates of recollection and familiarity were obtained via confidence (Experiment 1) or Remember-Know-New (Experiment 2) judgments. Critically, final recognition tests occurred either immediately, 1 day (Experiment 1 only), or 4 days after initial learning. At all retention intervals and in both methods of estimating recollection and familiarity on the final test (i.e. receiver-operating characteristic and remember-know analyses), initial testing magnified estimates of both recollection and familiarity. These findings suggest that the testing effect can result from changes in both processes and pose issues for theories of the testing effect that consider an exclusive role for recollection.

Competing national memories of World War II.

We assessed the knowledge of 1,338 people from 11 countries (8 former Allied and 3 former Axis) about World War II. When asked what percentage their country contributed to the war effort, across Allied countries, estimates totaled 309%, and Axis nations' estimates came to 140%. People in 4 nations claimed more than 50% responsibility for their country (Germany, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States). The overclaiming of responsibility reflected in these percentages was moderated when subjects were asked to consider the contributions of other countries; however, Russians continued to claim great responsibility, the only country that remained well over 50% in its claim of responsibility for the Allied victory. If deaths in the war are considered a proxy of a nation's contributions, the Soviet Union did carry much of the burden. This study points to sharp differences in national memory even across nations who fought on the same side in the war. Differing national perspectives shape diverse memories of the same complex event.

BOLD Activity During Correct-Answer Feedback in Cued Recall Predicts Subsequent Retrieval Performance: An fMRI Investigation Using a Partial Trial Design.

Receiving correct answer feedback following a retrieval attempt has proven to be a highly effective means of learning new information, yet the mechanisms behind its efficacy remain poorly understood. Here, fMRI was used to examine how BOLD activity measured during a period of feedback could predict subsequent memory (SM) performance on a final test. Twenty-five human subjects studied pairs of associated words, and were then asked to covertly recall target words in response to provided cues. Correct answer feedback was provided immediately after covert retrieval attempts. A partial trial design enabled separate modeling of activity related to retrieval and to feedback processing. During initial study, typical SM effects were observed across the whole brain. During feedback following a failed recall attempt, activity in only a subset of these regions predicted final test performance. These regions fell within the default mode network (DMN) and demonstrated negative SM effects, such that greater deactivation was associated with successful recall. No "task-positive" regions demonstrated SM effects in this contrast. The obtained results are consistent with a growing literature that associates DMN deactivation with successful learning in multiple task contexts, likely reflecting differences in the allocation of attentional resources during encoding.